The Spicers board has urged shareholders to vote for its preferred candidates Malcolm McComas and David Stillman to replace outgoing directors Robert Kaye and Mike Barker when the matter goes before an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) in Melbourne next month.
The Spicers board has urged shareholders to vote for its preferred candidates Malcolm McComas and David Stillman to replace outgoing directors Robert Kaye and Mike Barker when the matter goes before an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) in Melbourne next month.
The Board considers these two candidates will make a valuable contribution to Spicers and combined have an appropriate mix of skills, backgrounds, knowledge and experience to operate effectively, the company told the ASX.
McComas, chairman of drug development company Pharmaxis, is the board’s preferred candidate to become the next chairman of the company.
Kaye, the current chairman, and non-executive director Barker agreed to step down from the Spicers (formerly PaperlinX) board in June as part of an agreement that ended a long-running dispute with PaperlinX hybrid shareholders.
Those hybrid shareholders now hold a 68.3 percent stake in the company.
Coastal Capital, a New York-based private investment firm that held 19 percent of the hybrid securities, has nominated its own managing partners, Todd Plutsky and Vlad Artamonov, for positions on the board – a move opposed by the existing board.
Coastal has also called for the removal of the company’s finance director and CFO, Wayne Johnston – also opposed by the existing board.
The company’s non-executive directors, Robert Kaye and Mike Barker, do not support the resolution to remove Wayne Johnston and recommend that you vote against it. They believe that Johnston has made an invaluable contribution as a director in addition to his executive duties.
Other board candidates nominated by shareholders include: Gabriel Berger, Nigel Burgess, Guiseppe Coronica, former Spicers CEO Andrew Preece, Jonathan Trollip and Guthrie Williamson.
For the last five years, the Spicers board has comprised only three members - partly “to minimize costs” - but the current directors “support an increase in the size of the board.”
The EGM will take place in Melbourne at 10am on September 6.